Santa Sets a Bad Example | BTalk Australia

(11min 34) We all tend to overdo it over the festive season. Of course, when it comes to overeating Santa Claus sets a bad example. So what should we be feeding ourselves over Christmas?

Today on BTalk Australia Phil Dobbie talks to nutrionist Zoe Bingley-Pullin about eating over Christmas. She also gives advice on New Year resolutions. How can you maintain a more balanced diet in 09? What impact will it have on the way you work?

Got any other diet advice? Add it in the Talkback section at the end of this post.

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• Today’s Transcript

Phil Dobbie: Hello, I’m Phil Dobbie and welcome to BTalk Australia.  Today we look at your diet over the Christmas season and your resolutions for the New Year.  Christmas is coming and the goose is getting fat — I seem to remember singing that many years ago.  Unfortunately these days it’s not the goose that’s getting fat, I’m the one who’s getting fat.  And Christmas is not going to help at all, nor are the Christmas parties.  So how can you make it through Christmas so you’re fit for another year at work?  We’ve got nutritionist Zoe Bingley-Pullin on the line.  So Zoe, it’s Friday, it’s the drinking season and…

Zoe Bingley-Pullin: Yes, it certainly is.

Dobbie: …with the economy, we’ve got a lot to forget.  So, how are we going to cope with our hangover tomorrow morning?

Bingley-Pullin: Look I think over and above, it’s all that harm minimisation.  If you can do a bit of pre-work, it actually does help that hangover.  So, for all of you out there hangovers, or what happens with alcohol, is that it uses a lot of our B vitamins.  So a really good idea is you know the Beroccas and things like that they say to take after you’ve drunk, the best thing is doing the pre stuff, before you’ve drunk.

Dobbie: Right.

Bingley-Pullin: So a couple of things is, if you just take a really good multivitamin, which is very high in your Bs and what that will actually help to do is to metabolise your alcohol a little bit faster and to avoid the hangover.

Dobbie: Yeah, so in the office before you head off down to the pub.

Bingley-Pullin: Yes, that’s it.  The other thing also, is you know how the next day you’re craving fats, well the reason is because when you’ve got alcohol in the system, your body can’t absorb beneficial fats.  We call them omega fats.

Dobbie: Yeah that’s right, because I will never eat McDonald’s any time of the year except when I’ve got a hangover.

Bingley-Pullin: Oh don’t do it.  Don’t, what are you doing?  Look, why that actually happened is that the real reason is that your body can’t absorb these fats and what happens the next day is your brain gets a signal saying give me fat and what we do is we decipher that as the bad fat.  So really what you’re wanting is the good fat.

Dobbie: Right.

Bingley-Pullin: Things like avocado, fish, olive oil, so a bit of a hangover meal could be something like poached eggs, bit of avocado, you know a bit of bacon if you have to have it but try to keep to the lean bacon, a bit of olive oil, salt and pepper.  This way you’re giving your body what it actually needs.  The other good thing about this is that if you’ve hammered yourself that night, why bother giving yourself another thumping the day after through the liver.  Because remember, it’s the liver that’s actually metabolising all of this.  So try and go for as healthy as you possibly can the next day.  Keep your hydration really high, you know, have a breakfast like something I suggested before, lots of things, you can do a veggie juice if you can bear it.  If not, a bit of fruit.  I think people more the bloody Mary they probably would be thinking.  But if you can do the healthier version of that, that’s great.

Dobbie: Well maybe you have a carrot juice and tell yourself it’s a bloody Mary.

Bingley-Pullin: That’s it exactly.  Mind over matter.  Mind over matter.

Dobbie: Now, if I wanted a New Year resolution to eat better next year, first of all what will that mean from a work point of view?  If I’m eating better, what are the benefits I’m going to see?  Am I going to think straighter?

Bingley-Pullin: Without a doubt.  Look I predominately see corporate clients, so it is all about productivity for my clients.  How they can maximise their energy levels and cope with the stress of their big deal all the time.  And by eating correctly what you’re doing is you’re building up like a defence force around your body.  You’ve got a high vitamin and mineral intake if you’re eating well.  You’re going to be less lethargic because the food that you’re eating contains that boost of nutrients in it and by eating regularly as well, so having breakfast, mid morning snack, afternoon as in breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea and dinner, what you’ll also help to do is balance your blood sugar levels, so that will help with the dreaded you know, sugar craving in the afternoon.

Dobbie: Right.

Bingley-Pullin: Provided that you’re eating the right kinds of foods.  So good healthy snacks could be something like, you know, if you can do very healthy vegetable sticks chopped up with hommos or cottage cheese or tsatziki or guacamole.  If not, just keeping some fruit at hand, raw unsalted nuts and seeds, almonds, cashews are always good.  Good quality yoghurt, in fact the low fat yoghurt, I like the brand Attiki.

Dobbie: Right.

Bingley-Pullin: I think it’s a pretty good brand and you can get it most places now.  Or even like a smoothie, something like that can work quite well.

Dobbie: Now I thought too many nuts was bad for you.  It’s bad for your cholesterol isn’t it?

Bingley-Pullin: No, it’s actually not.  It’s completely the opposite.  It’s actually good for, well what it does, these fats contain what we call essential fats and a lot of these essential fats will actually help to increase your good cholesterol, that’s called your HCL and decrease your bad cholesterol, your LDL.  But the thing is there is a bit of truth in it because, if you are overeating anything, so even the good stuff, you know, if you’re not burning it, if you’re not actively moving your body, then you will end up storing it eventually as fat.

Dobbie: Right.

Bingley-Pullin: So that can be problematic obviously.

Dobbie: So let’s have a look at this New Year resolution.  If I’m going to start it early, cause you know, to have a bit of a…

Bingley-Pullin: Yeah, I like your work.

Dobbie: Well, then at least you know whether it’s a realistic proposition or not.  You know you can get to December the 31st and go it’s not going to work.  So how can you try it out on Christmas dinner?  Because you know, you got the big roast turkey, you’ve got the veggies, you’ve got at least a bottle of wine.

Bingley-Pullin: Yeah.

Dobbie: First, is Christmas dinner a nutritionally good or nutritionally bad meal?

Bingley-Pullin: Well if I look at the classic Aussie Christmas dinner, which we tend to go a lot more seafood, a lot more salads and things like that, I think it’s fantastic personally.  You know, I think if you can try and not go with your heavy meats and a lot of high fat meats as well and go for seafood cause seafood has all your good fats and it still has heaps of protein in it, so it’s going to fill you up, but it is a lot healthier than some of those high saturated fat meats.

Dobbie: Yeah, but if you do go down the roast turkey road, that’s not so good.

Bingley-Pullin: Look I think with roast turkey, it’s still a very lean meat.

Dobbie: Yeah.

Bingley-Pullin: I think with anything it’s just overeating.

Dobbie: Yeah.

Bingley-Pullin: I think that’s the problem.  You know lashings of gravy and then the dessert.  I think sometimes we can overeat.  But you know, I’m all about passionate eating.  I love food.  Food, I don’t have fear when it comes to food.  So if the Christmas dinner is the one that you want to let go at, then let go, but don’t, then let go the next day.  I think that’s the most important thing.  Don’t carry on the bad behaviour, all the indulgent behaviour, try to trick yourself, say how much you enjoyed it and get back into a healthy routine.

Dobbie: So maybe you need to plan in advance and make sure you get a turkey that’s just not too big.

Bingley-Pullin: That’s a good one.  Yes, exactly.

Dobbie: Everyone eats the next day because they’ve got so much food leftover.

Bingley-Pullin: Absolutely.  They say that the average person has a wastage of up to 40 percent for Christmas meals.  So we literally throw away almost half the food that we’ve made.

Dobbie: And I hate to see waste.  That’s my problem.

Bingley-Pullin: Well, think of the cost value in this economical climate as well.

Dobbie: But I just see it and I think I’ve got to eat it rather than waste it.

Bingley-Pullin: See food and eat it.  I think there’s a lot of people in that position.

Dobbie: So what about getting back to work?  You’ve mentioned a few things.  My vice by the way is chocolate.  I take that sugar hit, because sometimes you just need to have that energy burst.  So how do you avoid that when you know, you’re feeling like you’re lagging a bit but you’ve got to get your concentration up, that’s when I reach for a chocolate bar.

Bingley-Pullin: Yeah, sometimes I think you try to work out why you do it.  Some people do it out of boredom.  If it’s a bit of boredom, eating, try to do something else apart from eating.  So it might be you know, go and get an herbal tea, go and get a water, go walk around the block quickly and break the cycle.  Sometimes that mental obsession can be broken by doing something physical.

Dobbie: Right.

Bingley-Pullin: You know, gets you distracted.  A lot of time while we are actually craving sweets it’s because of our blood sugar levels.  So our blood sugar levels are falling and your brain is getting a message saying it wants sugar with insulin straightaway.  The best thing to do is try and actually avoid the craving altogether, ideally in an ideal situation and that has to do with actually eating the right lunch.  So if you don’t eat a lunch that’s high in heaps of pasta and heaps of rice and white bread and you tend to have something which is more high in protein, lots of vegetables, something more like a chicken salad or tuna salad, you’ll find that actually your cravings will actually decrease considerably in the afternoon, because these foods are very slow releasing and they don’t spike your insulin levels.  But I think if you do get to the point of craving and I’m sure we all will, try to just actually keep some healthy snacks at hand rather than the chocolate.  So some dried fruit, fresh fruit, nuts and things, but have them there in front of you rather than thinking oh, you know, I’m getting to that point of you know having to have my chocolate and coffee or muffin or whatever it might be in the afternoon.

Dobbie: Now if the reason is not that and you’re eating these snacks just out of boredom, which would never obviously ever happen when you work for CBS, but…

Bingley-Pullin: Of course not.

Dobbie: …for other companies, what do you do, you just go and stand in the corner and do a couple of handstands or something like that?

Bingley-Pullin: Well look I mean, that would be a little bit extreme wouldn’t it.  Look we all have really bad habits, we all stress eat, boredom eat and sometimes you’ve got to you know create a new habit, so at least being aware of why you’re actually doing it, OK well I’m bored, I’m sitting at a desk what else can I do, let’s eat.  That’s a great distraction.  Unfortunately it piles kilos onto your body.  Try and do something else and that could be simply get up, have a glass of water.  Something different to break the cycle could be a good idea.  If you’re not going to do that, at least make your snacks healthy.

Dobbie: Yeah.

Bingley-Pullin: You know, make them as healthy as you possibly can so you’re doing less harm to your body.

Dobbie: Now should we be having our main meal or should there be no such thing as a main meal, but if there is should we be having it at lunch time rather than in the evenings?

Bingley-Pullin: Look where that all comes from is obviously how you burn energy.

Dobbie: Yeah.

Bingley-Pullin: Unfortunately, most of us are so sedentary throughout our whole entire day that we’re not burning a lot of energy at all.

Dobbie: Anytime.  Yeah.

Bingley-Pullin: So it’s actually keeping your portions relatively small overall.  So regular eating is a little bit better because your body can actually use the energy in the smaller portions more effectively because it can use less fuel to actually burn.  And often when you get to that evening meal, you really don’t need to be eating that amount of food because you’re simply sitting at home or watching TV and you’re doing absolutely nothing again.

Dobbie: Yeah and for a lot of people as well, I mean they’re not getting home until seven or eight o’clock, you know, with commuting these days with some of the traffic jams.

Bingley-Pullin: Absolutely, yes

Dobbie: It’s too late to eat isn’t it?

Bingley-Pullin: It is getting late.  It is look, when some of my clients sometimes, you know, before I get my hands on them, they’re eating really early at night, just one or two things and sometimes for those clients I suggest that you have a light meal at work and I know it’s not very nice and romantic and anything like that but it is being productive is going to help your health and it could just be a really simple thing like a bowl of soup or some beautiful salad or some leftover meal that you had last night or even go and buy yourself a second lunch at lunchtime.  But if that’s not your thing and you want to see your kids and obviously see your hubby or wife or whatever it might be, then just try to keep it light and small portions would be great.  So again, any of those meals are fine, a healthy soup, salad, could be a small piece of fish with salad.  But again, your portions are a big factor to be looking at here.

Dobbie: Right, so Zoe, what are you eating today?  What have you had for lunch and what’s on the menu for tonight?

Bingley-Pullin: All right.  Well it’s not very good to look at as it is Christmas, but I’ve had a fantastic berry smoothie which had heaps of berries in it, yoghurt, bit of protein powder, some nuts in there as well to thicken it up.  I’ve already had probably about a litre and a half of water, I’ve had two cups of green tea and I’ve been snacking on — every week I cut up about a you know, about a massive Tupperware container full of chopped up veggies and what have you and I’ve just been snacking on that.  I’m actually meeting a friend of mine for some sushi for lunch.

Dobbie: Right.

Bingley-Pullin: And then I have my work Christmas party, so I think you picked the wrong day.

Dobbie: So it all goes to pot.

Bingley-Pullin: Look, what I’m going to do, we’re going out for Thai food so that can be a lot healthier which is great and I’m just going to watch my portions and with my alcohol I’m just going to be simple.

Dobbie: Right.

Bingley-Pullin: I’ve got a bit of a trick, I try and be designated driver.  Not all the time mind you, but in this instance I am.

Dobbie: And don’t forget the berocca’s before you start the celebrations tonight.  Thanks very much for your time Zoe.

Bingley-Pullin: My pleasure.  Merry Christmas.

Dobbie: And to you.

Bingley-Pullin: Thanks.  Bye.